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- Title
Sudden Enlightenment and Gradual Learning: A Re-examination of Xie Lingyun’s “Bianzong Lun”.
- Authors
Chow Ta-hsing
- Abstract
The relationship between sudden enlightenment and gradual learning in early Chinese Buddhism was first treated as a philosophical issue in Xie Lingyun’s ... essay “Bianzong lun” (... On Discerning the Ultimate Truth). This debate over sudden vs. gradual enlightenment and its attendant thinking played an important role in Chinese Buddhism and influenced the philosophical tradition that followed. Xie Lingyun understands Dao Sheng’s ... new theory of sudden enlightenment as having two aspects: it rejects Buddhism’s graduated path while adopting its idea that enlightenment is achievable, and rejects the Confucian idea that it is only possible to approach the achievement of the Sage while adopting Confucianism’s single ultimate goal of cultivation. Xie’s essay reaches a compromise between Confucian and Buddhist approaches, on one hand distinguishing enlightened goal and learning practice, while on the other emphasizing sudden enlightenment without discarding gradual learning. This can be viewed as a reiteration of Dao Sheng’s complete position.
- Subjects
HISTORY of the theory of knowledge; XIE, Lingyun, 385-433; THEORY of knowledge (Buddhism); LEARNING; CHINESE philosophy, 221 B.C.-960 A.D.; ESSAYS; CONFUCIANISM -- History; DAO Sheng
- Publication
Chinese Studies / Hanxue Yanjiu, 2014, Vol 32, Issue 3, p95
- ISSN
0254-4466
- Publication type
Article